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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - New Switch Tegra X1 "Mariko" Chip Details

 

How will the new Switch Chip be leveraged?

Better Battery Life 11 28.21%
 
Better Battery Life & Fanless 15 38.46%
 
More POWER! 3 7.69%
 
All 3! 7 17.95%
 
There won't be a revision with a new chip. 2 5.13%
 
Don't care. 1 2.56%
 
Total:39
curl-6 on 29 June 2019
Pemalite said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:
I expect it to be a shrink to 14/12/10nm (7nm is too expensive and too much in demand right now to produce large quantities). Probably the 12nm process NVidia is already using. However, no actual changes or redesigns in the hardware, so everything new comes with that shrink.

Which means either more power (about 30% max), more battery life (about 50% max), or a mix of both. Given that 30% more is barely visible, I think it will be better battery life except if the game explicitely calls upon the extra horsepower (those things can be programmed in)

It would also be ideal to power a smaller, thinner Switch, as it would produce less heat and run longer with a smaller battery, after all.

I concur. 12nm (Based on 16nm which in turn is based on 20nm.) would be the most ideal fit... But that is still a dramatic improvement over the archaic 20nm process.

Very interesting that Nintendo isn't just simply dropping the Pascal derived Tegra in... And nVidia decided it was worth the effort to engineer/respin a new SoC for Switch and Shield.

No reason why we can't have both performance gains and battery life gains though.

I can't help but feel like it'll be 16nm simply cos Nintendo always seems to play it conservative when it comes to tech stuff.

As for not using X2, could going from Maxwell to Pascal conceivably cause any compatibility issues, could existing Switch games perhaps use some Maxwell-specific code? Maybe it was simply cheaper this way and they don't wanna fork out the cash for the X2.



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Oneeee-Chan!!! on 29 June 2019

It sounds like girl name .



mutantsushi on 29 June 2019
RolStoppable said:
The most credible rumor talked about two upcoming Switch revisions.

I am curious why you seem to be ignoring a major element of the thread's cited article, namely the evidence suggesting two distinct APU ID's were merged into one. Perhaps once representing slightly different production cost / performance spec products, but ultimately merged into one developer target. Without the information linking them and their merging, it's reasonable that other bits of info were once interpreted as two distinct SKUs, but I don't understand why taking into account the evidence mentioned, one would still assume 2 SKUs. If you have a special angle on this that I'm missing, it seems like you would want to elaborate on that, to explain why the article is mistaken or likely mistaken etc?

Bofferbrauer2 said:
I expect it to be a shrink to 14/12/10nm (7nm is too expensive and too much in demand right now to produce large quantities). Probably the 12nm process NVidia is already using. However, no actual changes or redesigns in the hardware, so everything new comes with that shrink. (...) Which means either more power (about 30% max), more battery life (about 50% max), or a mix of both.

Curious why you would expect that ...from Nintendo? And as the thread's article citation notes, the ~30% figure is in line with what 16nm process would offer, so what evidence suggests a better process to you?

curl-6 said:
I can't help but feel like it'll be 16nm simply cos Nintendo always seems to play it conservative when it comes to tech stuff.

Certainly, I mean Sony with PS4 Pro / Slim as well as most smartphone makers were using equivalent 16nm process at/before Switch launch: 16nm was mature process then with price/performance benefits, there was no real reason Nintendo couldn't have launched with it... Except they know they can get away with less performance and worse battery life because they aren't competing directly with anybody (similar controls available for smartphones not withstanding, it isn't same market). Now with Sony on verge of launching PS5 at 7nm, Nintendo is just moving to launch 16nm product.


Last edited by mutantsushi - on 29 June 2019

mutantsushi on 29 June 2019
KBG29 said:
JRPGfan said:
The only issue is if these are also able to dock.... passive cooling + docked modes higher power consumption = issue with heat. But if these mini's cant dock, then its not a issue, or maybe they need a special dock to help with cooling or such. There could be work arounds.
Removing the fan would save a lot of room for better things. It would be great if they had no internal fan, but had vents to allow cooling via a fan on the docking station like you are suggesting.

If handheld doesn't need a fan but high performance mode for docked does, it seems plausible that removing the fan from the handheld while leaving air vents would allow for dock-mounted fan to cool the APU (as well as internal dock power supply?). Carrying around a fan inside handheld that is only for use while docked seems... strange. Especially when Nintendo seems very intent on insisting gamers use the dock and not just connect handheld via HDMI etc.

Last edited by mutantsushi - on 30 June 2019

curl-6 on 30 June 2019
shikamaru317 said:
sethnintendo said:
Whoever thought of Mariko name should be shot.

Why? All Nvidia Tegra chips have codenames based on Marvel and DC comic book characters. Tegra X1 Codename is Logan (Wolverine), while Mariko is one of Logan's love interests, so it makes sense for the codename of a Tegra X1 revision to be a character who was close to Logan in the comics. 

Plus remove the K and you get...



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Pemalite on 30 June 2019
curl-6 said:
Pemalite said:

I concur. 12nm (Based on 16nm which in turn is based on 20nm.) would be the most ideal fit... But that is still a dramatic improvement over the archaic 20nm process.

Very interesting that Nintendo isn't just simply dropping the Pascal derived Tegra in... And nVidia decided it was worth the effort to engineer/respin a new SoC for Switch and Shield.

No reason why we can't have both performance gains and battery life gains though.

I can't help but feel like it'll be 16nm simply cos Nintendo always seems to play it conservative when it comes to tech stuff.

As for not using X2, could going from Maxwell to Pascal conceivably cause any compatibility issues, could existing Switch games perhaps use some Maxwell-specific code? Maybe it was simply cheaper this way and they don't wanna fork out the cash for the X2.

There isn't really any significant changes between Maxwell and Pascal from a developer point of view that I can think of.
Nor do we know if the new SoC is based on Maxwell anyway.... So it's an extremely interesting situation either way.

16nm is probably not as cost efficient as TSMC 12nm right now which seems to be the "sweet spot" in terms of fabrication, hence why nVidia is using it for Turing... Plus because 12nm is based upon 16nm, it's really really easy to port designs over to 12nm anyway.

I would assume price will play a factor into it, hence why nVidia is likely piggy-backing on Nintendo's potential scale-of-economies with Switch to drop it into Shield.
I would think it has some advantages over the Pascal based Tegra X2 though, otherwise there would be zero point in nVidia using it over the Tegra X2 in their  Shield devices.




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JRPGfan on 30 June 2019
shikamaru317 said:
This chip will likely be used in a revision of the current Switch model and/or the Switch Mini, but I have a feeling that Switch Pro, if it indeed exists, won't be using it. Simply overclocking the Tegra X1 is not going to give a meaningful enough performance increase to amount to anything.

Nintendo arnt going to do that big a upgrade, like PS4 & XB1 had, with the PS4pro + Xbox One X.
This would be more like the "new 3ds" style upgrade.

Even if its only +20-30% more cpu/gpu grunt in certain situations, that could still be enough to help in some titles with dynamic scaleing and such.

But I too think, the better usage is for makeing the switch cheaper+smaller+better battery life (basically more handheld friendly).



Jranation on 30 June 2019
JRPGfan said:

Would you rather:

A) +20-30% performance improvement from clockspeed increases, but still has same battery life + active fan.

or

B) Same performance as current switch, but now doesnt need to have a active fan cooler, and has better battery life.


Situation B) makes more sense if their aiming to do a Switch Mini, imo.

Also the TL:DR version should be:
Same chip (X1) shrunk from 20nm->16nm finFet, now could clock higher or use less power.

B for me! 



Pocky Lover Boy! 

DonFerrari on 30 June 2019

Seems like a more useful update for Switch than more power.



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Jumpin on 30 June 2019

This is a good update pre-Pokémon and AC.



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